


What Gets Left Behind

by PorcelainAlice



Series: Isle!Ben AU [2]
Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 23:34:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20882498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PorcelainAlice/pseuds/PorcelainAlice
Summary: Outtakes, spin-offs and side stories to accompany TKAAR.





	What Gets Left Behind

_ By then his knee had stopped bleeding too, and Ben was feeling better. The world didn’t look so dizzy and far away anymore, so he took the scarf out of Mr. Horace’s hands and tried to get some of the blood out of his hair. _

Mr. Horace put his hands in his pockets and leaned back on his heels. “... So you gave Kaa a run for his money, did you?”

“Who?” Ben asked.

“The snake, lad. That’s his name. Makes trouble for any poor sod goes too deep in the woods. I hadn’t realized you lived far enough in for him to go after you.”

Nodding, Ben handed the scarf back. “He tried to eat me and Carlos, but Carlos beat him up with a stick and it made him really mad.”

Then it was Horace’s turn to be confused. “He did?” He asked. When Ben nodded, Mr. Horace smiled proudly. “Well, good on him, then.”

The door to the bathrooms opened, and a man Ben didn’t know walked in. He had a bottle of something in his hand, and he was stumbling and he looked kind of angry. Mr. Horace was suddenly very stiff.

The man made a face at them Ben didn’t like very much. He didn’t know what the face was; it kind of looked like a smile, but it was mean and nasty and made the hair on the back of Ben’s neck stand up, like the faces on some of the men who had tried to grab him when he first started sneaking out. Ben reached for Mr. Horace’s hand.

The man was too drunk to notice. He laughed and stumbled closer, sloshing whatever was in his bottle all over the floor. “You renting him?” He asked Mr. Horace. “Or he yours?”

“He’s not for sale,” Mr. Horace said, sharper than Ben had ever heard him say anything. He squeezed Ben’s hand tight, but his other hand was resting on the counter, holding the hilt of Ben’s knife.

The man scrunched his face up and took a step closer, like he might do something bad. Mr. Horace let go of Ben’s hand, but not the knife.

He held it in front of him when he turned around to face the man. Ben’s hands had been shaking when he held the knife the whole way through the woods, but Mr. Horace’s weren’t. They were very steady, and his eyes were very dark.

The man eyed the knife with a glare, then laughed. He smashed his bottle against one of the walls around the toilets, and it shattered. Ben jumped at the sound, his heart in his throat. Were they gonna get into a fight? Should he do something?

Mr. Horace didn’t even blink. “You know who I am?” He asked, very quietly. “You know who I work for?” 

The man didn’t seem like he knew, but Ben didn’t know either, so he wasn’t sure why that mattered. Was Mr. Horace’s boss gonna get the man in trouble somehow?

“Think I give a shit?” The man said. “Pirates do what we fucking want. You know who _ I _ work for? Hook'd shred your ass.”

While the man was still talking, Mr. Horace said “You’ve got such nice skin,” And that made the man stop. “The missus would prefer fur, a’course, but she won’t say no to leather.”

The man blinked. He looked confused, and then, slowly, he looked scared. 

Mr. Horace was still talking. “Aye, bet she’d be real pleased with me. Man your size, you’d make a new coat, nice pair of boots. Maybe even gloves to go with it. She’d be put in a lovely mood, she would.”

The man took a half a step back, and then a full step forward. Mr. Horace stepped forward, too, faster. The man held up his broken bottle, but he was drunk and wobbly and Mr. Horace was staring into him with his gray eyes cold and flat like ice. “Try it,” He said, very quietly. “Take another step and I’ll _ fucking skin you _.”

**Author's Note:**

> I went back and forth on this scene a million times, but ultimately decided it felt kind of gratuitous. While the idea of an isle adult standing up for and protecting children is a great one, I figure we already see enough of Horace's caring nature when he patches up Ben, and I wanted to keep the focus on Ben without Sudden Badass Horace distracting from anything.
> 
> Still, I kind of love this scene even if it's hugely self-indulgent.


End file.
